Grundy County, Missouri - Chapter 11, 1908

Chapter 11

INDUSTRIAL - County Ranks High in Agriculture - Valuation of Property - Manufacturing - Table of Industries - Table of Wage Earners' Salaries - Review of Manufacturing Industries - Mining - Surplus Products of County - Telephone Systems - Railroads - First Efforts - Company Organized - Bonds Voted - The Rock Island Comes - Machine Shops - Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City - Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul.

THIS is pre-eminently an agricultural county. It excels not only in general agriculture, but especially in registered live stock. Seldom is there a live stock show of any consequence in this or any other state that Grundy County is not well represented among the winners. Perhaps more interest is taken in cattle than any other animal, Shorthorns, Herefords and Angus breeds predominating, with some fine Jerseys. There are many breeders of pure bred hogs in this county, and some very noted herds. Poland China is the favorite breed. Of late years a considerable interest, rapidly increasing, has been taken in the growing of fine poultry.

Grundy County has 460 square miles of land, or 294,400 acres, of which about 200,000 acres are under cultivation. Number of farms, 2,298; average size, II 8.6 acres, including land of arable, pasture, and other character. It is drained to the south- ward by a fork of Grand river and several other small streams. Between these streams are found prairie ridges. Uplands are black, vegetablemould soil, twelve to twenty inches in depth, underlaid with yellow, porous clay. Bottom lands are a heavier black soil which originally was covered with heavy, wild prairie grass. When cultivated it becomes lighter weight, and is underlaid at twentyfoot depth with sheet water. Farm improvements are equal to those of southern Iowa. Numerous farm homes cost $1,500 to $3,000 each ; better in east half of county. Valley land sells at $40 to $75 ; prairie, $50 to $100, around Trenton, $100 and up. The cheapest land in the county is in small creek-bordering patches, selling at $35 to $40.

The value of the surplus products in Grundy County in 1907 was $2,014,648. It shipped out more than fifty per cent more millet seed than any other county in the state, sending out that year 36,220 bushel. The value of the miscellaneous products exported from Grundy County in 1906 was, according to the report of the state labor commissioner, nearly three times as much as any other county, in all 164,000 pounds. In addition to the amount used

Fifty-four manufacturing establishments in this county reported to the state labor bureau. According to statistics given out by that bureau, the value of goods manufactured for the year was $332,889. Value of material and supplies used, $161,172. Capital invested, $246,867. Value of grounds, $15,000, of buildings, $54,033 and of machinery $130,097. They paid in that year for rent, $3,916, for taxes, $3,051 and for insurance, $1,168. They employed 239 males and 35 females, and paid in wages $106,120. The following information in detail is from the report of the state labor bureau:

Bakeries - The earnings for establishments ranged from $600 to $1,200 a year. Three working owners figured on an average of $52 a month for their toil and profits of about 6 per cent on their investment. Bakers earned from $9 to $14 a week; helpers from $5 to $7. Sales girls were paid $13 a month. One shop worked its bakers only 8 hours a day; others 10 to 11 hours.

Brick, tiling - The manager was paid $75 a month. He took care of the office work. Brick setters were paid from $10 to $15 a week; clay miners, $10 to $12; brick pitchers, $10; brick graders, $12; helpers, $6; teamsters, $10; truckers, $10. The time was 10 hours a day.

Carshops - The master mechanic was paid $225 a month; foreman, $93.56; clerks, $58; female stenographers, $55. In the mechanical department boilermakers from $19.44 to $27 a week; apprentices, $7.29; helpers, $10.53 to $11.88; welders.

Management And Clerical Force

Carriages, Blacksmiths - AU owners worked in their shops, clearing from $600 to $1,200 a year for their toil and invested capital; averaging $68 a month each. Blacksmiths were paid $2 a day; woodworkers, $1.75 to $2, and helpers from $5 to $7 a week.

Cigars - Earnings of each establishment averaged $1,900 a year. Out of that owners paid themselves an average of $51 a month. Cigarmakers worked by the piece, earning from $8 to $12.50 a week. An apprentice earned $6, and strippers, boys and girls, $2.50 to $3.50 a week. A salesman was paid $12 a week. Time, 8 hours a day.

Clothing, Tailoring - Owner cleared $1,000 a year, considering $65 a month salary and the remainder the earnings of the money he had invested. A tailor earned $12 a week with extra pay for overtime.

Cooperage - About $800 was cleared by the owners for 200 days in 1906, about 25 per cent on the capital invested. Sawyers and woodturners earned $2 a day each ; a fireman, $6 a week.

Flour, Feed, Meal - Mills earned from $500 to $1,500 a year, an average of probably 19 per cent on the investment. Out of this came the salary of the owners for their portion of the work. Engineers are paid from $40 to $50 a month ; millers $10 to $15 a week, and helpers $6 to $7.

Harness - Owners cleared from $40 to $60 a month out of their shops, averaging $51 for those who worked at the bench. Harness makers earned from $9 to $12 a week, and helpers $5 to $7.

Ice - The plant cleared 6 per cent on invested capital in 168 days in 1906. Two managers - stockholders - were paid $75 a month for their duties. Weekly earnings: engineers, $15 a week; firemen, $10; ice pullers, $10; wagon men, $8.54. A woman bookkeeper was paid $15 a month. A total of 850 tons of ice were shipped.

Light, Pozver, Heat - Plant paid 6.2 per cent on the capital. Two managers were paid $125 each a month; a foreman, $85; a stenographer (female), $30. For the wage earners; engineers drew $21 a week; firemen, $14; linemen, $15 ; gas makers, $18; metermen, $12. There was an increase of 9.5 per cent for the wage earners, and 20 per cent for the stenographer. The skilled workers put in 12 hours a day, working on Sundays.

Printing and Publishing - Owners did the editorial work and all soliciting, earning from $45 to $68 a month, with $62 as the average. In addition they had the profits of job work. Female compositors earned from $3 to $8 a week. Monthly pay, female solicitors, $45; female bookkeepers, $26; foremen earn from $40 to $60; editors and reporters, $40 to $50. Weekly wages : compositors, $6 to $12; pressmen, $10; circulators, $6; boy carriers, $1.25 for 2 hours work a day. One establishment reported an increase in wages over 1905, ranging from II per cent to 25 per cent, with 15 per cent as the average. Time, 9 hours a day for the mechanical and 10 to 15 hours for the management and editorial.

Tinning, Sheet Iron - Owners worked at the trade, clearing $60 a month on their shops. Tinners and sheet metal workers were paid from $12 to $15 a week when they put in full time, which was 10 hours a day ; helpers from $5 to $7 a week.

The telephone industry was opened up to the Independent Telephone Companies in 1893 with the expiration of the Bell Telephone Company's patents. The first movement by the so-called independent telephone companies was with toll lines running between towns usually connecting them with the county seat. The first one came into Grundy County through Gallatin and on to Trenton, passing through the county seat to Milan. This was the first operating telephone line in Grundy County and was built in the year 1884.

Soon after a telephone system was installed in Trenton, starting with lOO telephone subscribers. The next year the plant passed into the hands of its present owners, who are C. J. Bain, P. W. Bain, W. W. Bain and R. H. Hemley, and has been owned and operated by them until the present time. The system has grown from a small rudely constructed plant with its lOO subscribers in the county seat, to one of a county system with more than 2,500 telephones, with branch exchanges at Spickard, Laredo, Gait, Brimson, Tindall and Dunlap, owning and operating hundreds of farm telephones from the various exchanges, owned by it throughout the county, with splendid construction, making a first class system, and being one of the largest of the independent telephone systems outside of the cities in the state of Missouri, with long distance telephone connections with all the principal cities of the United States. The company is capitalized at $75,- 000, and managed and officered by C. J. Bain, President; P. W. Bain, vice president; W. W. Bain, secretary and manager, all being residents of the city of Trenton.

The Gait Telephone company, another strong organization, with an actual value of several thousand dollars, has a network of wires throughout the east and north part of the county, giving service to several hundred farmers and townspeople.

The future of the telephone industry in Grundy County is seemingly as bright as has been the past, and the time is not far distant until every household in Grundy County will be able to communicate with

There is but one mine in operation in Grundy County. A coal mine was worked at Gait intermittently for a few years, and in Trenton for a number of years.

"This company is capitalized at $30,000 and is composed of the following parties : C. A. Hoffman, president; James Overton, vice president; R. W. Allardice, manager ; W. E. Austin, treasurer ; I. F. Fulkerson, secretary. The company owns 15 acres in the northeast part of the city and hold under lease 1,000 acres of contiguous territory. The mine is entered by a shaft 243 feet in depth, which reaches a coal seam eighteen and a half inches thick on an average. Electric power is used in operating, and ventilation is secured by a fan ten feet in diameter. The long-wall plan of working is followed. Twenty-two miners and four top men were employed during two months the mine was in operation in 1905. The product of the mine was 500 tons of coal, valued at $1,250. The improvements consist of a new shaft sunk, new tipple, engine room, blacksmith shop, store house, scales, barns, tenement houses and electric hoist, all costing about $22,000. This company is worked on the co-operative plan. Each miner must subscribe for at least one share of stock, and ten per cent of his wages are applied for same. Assistant Mine Inspector H. J. Hamil visited this mine October 6, 1905, when the new shaft had just been sunk to the coal. Tower and other buildings were in course of construction. Everything on top, as well as in the shaft, is built of white oak timber. This is a new mine ; the first no feet of the shaft is timbered with white oak six by eight inches, and the remaining 133 feet is timbered with three by six-inch of the same kind of material. Sinking of shaft was begun on the 20th of June, and three shifts of men were worked until coal was struck. Everything in and around the mine is new and up-to-date, and we predict when complete and in full operation it will be one of the best equipped mines in Missouri. Under the present management there are 107 stockholders, with $30,000 working capital.

No better account of the coming of the railroad can be given than that written by Hon. A. H. Burkeholder in 1881, for the use of Messrs. Birdsail & Dean's history. It is as follows :

"The first railroad projected, and in which the people of Grundy County, and more especially Trenton township felt an interest, was the old Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad. That road was buildingwest and had surveyed two lines, or partially so, and subscriptions were asked all along the routes. Some of those connected with the railroad paid Grundy County a visit and the result was that a proposition to subscribe $25,000 was submitted to the people. The election was held and carried, and the $25,000 was to be subscribed on condition that the money so voted should be expended within the limits of Grundy County. As the road was farther south, through the next tier of counties below, it was never called for. The election cost the people $150.

time it assumed proportions that gave hope that before it abated the iron horse might come snorting over the prairies and woodlands of the county in triumph. The Chilhcothe & Des Moines City, which changed to the Chicago & Southwestern, and still later to the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, was the first road to take practical shape and to promise gratifying results. The history of this road forms a very interesting chapter in the progress of Grundy County, and a full account of its progress and final success will be found full of interest to future generations and to many of this day. It requires energy and perserverence to accomplish any great work, and fortunately for Grundy County, she was blessed with a good many of that kind of people.

"It was believed that the result of the war would bring about a new order of things in the state, and the people along the Grand river country were not slow to partake of this spirit, so that as early as 1864 they procured a charter for the Brunswick & Chillicothe railroad, and in February, 1865, a charter was also secured for the Chillicothe & Des Moines City Railway Company. It was the design that the people of Iowa should co-operate in the movement to secure a railroad from the capital of Iowa south through the Grand river country, via Brunswick, to St. Louis.

In the act creating the Chillicothe & Des Moines City Railway Company, Dr. James B. Bell, J. J. Clark, J. W. McMillan, J. H. Ellis, John A. Lowe and Robert L. Moore, of Livingston County, Daniel Berry, G. W. A^Ioberly, A. Y. Shanklin, C. Ramage, E. L. Winters, S. Wilson, Wm. Metcalf, Wm.

Bennett and Wm. Wyatt of Grundy County, J. A. Kennedy, John Brown, T. J. Wyatt, A. Lowrey, J. Bradley, John Snyder, J. F. Stevens, I. Patton and F. M. Evans of Mercer, were made the first board of directors.

"On the 6th of June, 1865, a new constitution was adopted which had a provision allowing the people of counties and towns throughout the state to vote aid to the construction of railroads, provided two-thirds of the voters voting at an election for that purpose would vote for such aid. Under this provision in the constitution, the people of Chillicothe and Grundy and Mercer counties cooperating together, finally succeeded in voting a large subscription to the Chillicothe & Des Moines City Railroad Company, to-wit :

"So far as Grundy County was concerned, success in voting the $200,000 came by the hardest work. No less than three elections were held before a two-third vote for the subscription could be obtained. At the fall election in 1866 a proposition to subscribe $200,000 was defeated; afterward, on the 8th day of January, 1867, the same proposition, at a special election held for that purpose, was again defeated, but the people were determined to have a railroad connection with the "outer world," and by their zeal and energy kept on pressing the question and in March, 1868, a mass meeting was held at which resolutions requesting the county court to submit the question again, were passed. Accordingly, on the nth of April, 1868, a special election was held and the proposition to subscribe $200,000 to the Chillicothe & Des Moines City Company was carried by more than a two-thirds vote and the people were happy. On the 19th of February, 1868, the very day when the right to meet and organize under the act creating the corporation expired, fifteen of the charter members met in a called meeting at Chillicothe, and effected a temporary organization by electing Hon. George W. Moberly, president; Hon. Robert S. Moore, secretary; and Wm. Wyatt, treasurer. At a meeting held in Trenton on the 22d of April, 1868, the following named persons were elected directors to serve until the annual election in June following, to-wit: J. H. Shanklin, M. M. Thompson, Wm. Dunlap, Stephen Perry, I. B. Bell, Smith Turner, S. H. Ferryman, Ira B. HA^de, Israel Patton, R. V. Ballew, Wm. B. Rogers, H. I. Alley and Peter Cain, who organized by electing Col. J. H. Shanklin, president; S. H. Perryman, secretary, and R. W. Ballew, treasurer. The president's salary was fixed at $3,500 a year and expenses, and the secretary's salary, to include services for canvassing for subscriptions of stock to the company, was fixed at $2,000. At the same meeting Hon. Ira B. Hyde was appointed attorney for the company, and the treasurer was ordered to give a bond for $50,000. On the first day of June a new board was elected substantially the same and the same officers being continued, except that Ira B. Hyde was made secretary, vice Perryman, resigned. The company being now permanently organized and ready for work, the president, secretary and others gave nearly their whole time to the project of building a railroad from Chillicothe, where it would connect with the Brunswick & Chilhcothe road (now Wabash) north through Grundy and Mercer Counties in the direction of Des Moines and of co-operating with a company in Iowa known as the Chilhcothe, Leon & Des Moines road. Stock books were opened and during the year the total capital stock subscribed amounted to $451,500, as follows, to-wit:

"Grundy County, payable in bonds at eight per cent interest, $200,000; Mercer County, payable in bonds at eight per cent interest, $200,000; City of Chilhcothe, $40,000, payable in bonds at eight per cent interest. Private subscription, cash, $3,750, and lands in various conditions, $5,750.

"Steps were at once taken to employ a corps of engineers to locate the road, and early in June, 1869, a strong force w^as put to work to survey and locate the road, with Peter Marker as chief and H. N. Armstrong as assistant engineers. This work was vigorously pressed, so that as early as the 19th of February, 1869, the road was ready to be let for construction; and on the loth of February, the contract for grading, bridging and tieing the road, from Chilhcothe to Princeton, a distance of fortynine miles, was awarded to Messrs. Nolan & Moore for $320,000, in bonds of the company which proved not to be sufficient. The construction of the road bed was at once commenced and vigorously prosecuted till in July, when a rainy season set in and almost totally stopped the work, and as no contract for ironing, equipping and operating the road up to this time had been secured, the spirit of criticism was developed, and considerable opposition manifested itself against the further issuing of county bonds in payment of its subscription, which at this time amounted to about $50,000. The county court, composed of Hon. A. H. Burkeholder, president, and Wm. V. Denslow and G. A. Spickard, withstood the opposition, and the president of the court continued to issue bonds as the work on the road progressed, as the court had agreed to do, and notwithstanding 'Black Friday,' (27th of September, 1869), and its effect on the financial condition of the country, which strengthened local opposition, the board of directors and the members of the county courts of Grundy and Mercer counties met at Trenton, October 19, 1869, and resolved to co-operate together and go ahead with the construction of the road bed, and between that time and the first of May, 1870, the president of the county court continued to issue bonds, as the work in the construction of the road progressed, until the entire subscription of the county had been paid in bonds. "About the middle of February, 1870, negotiations were opened between the Chillicothe & Des Moines City Railroad Company and the Chicago & Southwestern Railroad Company, which, on the 20th of April, 1870, resulted in an agreement as follows : That the Chillicothe & Des Moines Company let and lease to the Chicago & Southw^estern Company all that portion of the road bed between Princeton and Trenton, and such further portion south of Trenton as may be necessary to make a convenient crossing of East Fork of Grand river, for the full term of nine hundred and ninety-nine years, on the condition that the lessees should, within eighteen months from that time, iron and operate the road. This contract was in the main put in- to writing on the third of June, 1870. Prior to the Opening of these negotiations, the people generally had become despondent - there did not seem any way out - no feasible plan in sight to get the road ironed, equipped and operated, because at that time the North Missouri and the Hannibal & St. Joseph roads were loaded down with mortgages, and were unable to undertake any new enterprise. So when the Chicago & Southwestern came in sight, and it became known that the foregoing lease was effected, the people felt that though there had been 'groping in the dark,' yet 'there was light behind the clouds,' and that the money that the county had furnished was well invested, as the management was better than had been expected, that it would place Grundy County on a great through line of railway, connecting with Chicago and the east on one side, with the great grain and cattle producing regions of the southwest, and the people were again happy. And the sequel shows that it was a wise movement, as the completion of the road soon followed, reaching Trenton from the north on the 24th day of June, 1871, and as early as September the road was completed through the county, and ready for through business to Leavenworth as early as October, 1871.

"In July and August the question of locating the railroad machine shops agitated the people. The people of Trenton voted $10,000 and secured about $3,000 worth of land and offered it to the Chicago & Southwestern if that company would establish a division round house and machine shops at Trenton permanently. The company accepted the proposition and the people were again well sat- isfied with their investment, as it has made Trenton a first class town and a splendid home market for the people of the county. In addition to the above, the Chicago & Southwestern Railroad Company also received $50,000 in eight per cent bonds from the town of Trenton, in payment of a subscription voted to the company as early as July, 1869, on the condition that their road should pass through Trenton.

"In the contract made on the 20th of April, 1870, between the Chillicothe & Des Moines Railway Company and the Chicago & Southwestern Railway Company, the latter company had the right, at their option, within eighteen months to complete and operate that portion of the line between Muddy creek and Chillicothe, belonging to the former, which was then nearly ready for the iron. The Chicago & Southwestern did not, however, elect to complete and operate the same, and after fruitless efforts to get some other corporation to do so, the board of directors sold the ties along that part of their line and the same remains in an unfinished condition today. The board of directors elected in 1866 remained in the board, with verv few changes, till June, 1877, when a new set of n.en were elected as directors of the Chillicothe & Des Moines City Railroad Company, who at once worked up a feasible plan to iron and operate the road between Trenton and Chillicothe, but the great 'railroad strike' that took place in July, 1877, frustrated their plan, and the same was afterward abandoned, and this branch still remains uncompleted. The present management, headed by Judge George Hall as president and E. M. Harber as sec- retary, is sanguine that no distant day the road will be completed and operated, and the railroads at Trenton and Chillicothe be connected. It may be added here that while it was originally contemplated to build a railroad from the city of Des Moines, Iowa, south, and down along the Grand river, via Brunswick to St. Louis, the friends of the project succeeded in building a road from Chillicothe to Brunswick, where connection was made with 9, St. Louis line, and from Trenton to Princeton, leaving a gap between Chillicothe and Trenton and betw^een Princeton and Des Moines in the line as originally designed.

"It may here be remarked that the board, who had the management of building the Chillicothe & Des Moines City railroad, had many difficulties to contend with; mud in the winter and spring of 1869, and a rainy season in the following summer, as well as local criticism and financial embarrassment. Nearly all the capital stock of the company consisted of county bonds which went off stubbornly at seventy cents on the dollar, and had not the county courts of Grundy and Mercer counties supplemented the efforts of the board the project doubtless would not have been a success.

*'In February, 1877, a few months before the old board retired, they published a financial statement concerning the entire labors from April, 1868, which, in substance, shows that the subscribed capital stock by the counties of Grundy and Mercer was all paid; to-wit: $400,000, w^hich, in the main, was disposed of at seventy cents on the dollar, and realized to the company $280,000 in cash. That from subscriptions on private stock the company received $2,439. From the Omaha Railroad Company, on the right of way, the company received $989. From the Chicago & Southwestern Railway Company, $11,000 in aid of construction. From sale of Grundy County bonds in excess of seventy cents, $591, making a total of actual, available cash funds with which to build the road the sum of $295,469.50. And the records of the company show that the treasurer of the board paid out the following amounts : For engineering salaries, $48,- 226.93 ; to contractors Nolan & Moore, including work done after Messrs. Nolan & Moore had failed, in cash, $246,218, making a total of $294,- 494.11, and leaving a balance of $575.39 in the treasury August 25, 1871, and which was afterward paid out.

"A casual observation of the foregoing statement will show that the city of Chillicothe failed to pay her subscription of $40,000, and which the people of Grundy County regarded, and at the time the city council refused to issue and deliver the bonds, charged as bad faith on the part of Chillicothe.

"It may be added that the Chicago & Southwestern railroad was a mere construction company backed up and indorsed by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific which was the real party in interest and which was seeking an outlet to the Missouri river at Leavenworth and the connection the Rock Island has since made at Atchison and Kansas City has made the road through Grundy a grand trunk line, between the east and the west.

"In 1850 a proposition of $25,000 was voted to the aid of the construction of the Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad. $500 were expended by the county court in 1866 in surveying routes through the county for the location of the ChilHcothe & Des Moines railroad. A proposition to subscribe $200,- 000 to the Chilhcothe & Des Moines railroad was voted down at the November election in 1866, and the same was again voted down on the 8th of January, 1867, but was carried at a special election on the nth of April, 1868. At the July term of the county court in 1869, orders were made submitting the question to the people of subscribing $150,000 to the Chicago & Southwestern Railroad Company and $150,000 to the Quincy, Missouri & Pacific Railroad Company and $50,000 to the Brookfield & Trenton Railroad Company, but these propositions all failed.

'*In May, 1870, the township of Madison voted down a proposition to vote $25,000 to the capital stock of the Chicago & Southwestern Railroad Company. On the 20th of July, 1871, Marion township voted $50,000 to the capital stock of the Lexington & Utica Railroad Company. In the spring of 1873 Madison township voted down a proposition to subscribe $25,000 to the Quincy, Missouri & Pacific railroad, and Marion township carried a like proposition and Trenton township voted $50,000 to the Quincy, Missouri & Pacific railroad at the same time. On the 22d of October, 1875, Marion township voted $15,000 more to tlie Quincy, Missouri & Pacific railroad. The city of Trenton voted $50,000 to the capital stock of the Chicago & Southwestern Railroad Company in the month of July, 1869, $50,000 to Quincy, Missouri & Pacific in October, 1875, $50,000 to the ChilHcothe & Des Moines City Railroad company in Nou vember, 1875, and $13,000 for the repair and machine shops in 1871 ; altogether out of the various propositions $528,000 of county, town and township subscriptions were carried by a two-third vote as the law required, and bonds by the county and city of Trenton to the amount of $263,000 were issued. The respective railroads to which the remainder of the subscriptions were voted never complied with the conditions of the subscriptions and hence the same were never paid in bonds. The last effort of the people of Trenton and vicinity made to secure further railroad connection was in July, 1880, which resulted in raising $40,000 by private subscriptions to the Quincy, Missouri & Pacific road, payable in one and two years on the condition that the road would be built through the corporate limits of Trenton by the first of July, 1881, so that the subscriptions, both public and private, amounted to a little over $300,000 but in return for this the people of the county have secured railroad property of an assessed value of nearly $400,000."

The Quincy, Missouri & Pacific, now the Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City, after creating great expectations in Lindley, Edinburg and Tindall, was built to Trenton in 1881, disappointing all the former towns and giving life to the towns of Gait and Dunlap. It was then owned by the Wabash Company. The cars on this road first reached Trenton in July, 1 88 1. In 1897 the road w^as extended to Pattonsburg, making connections to Omaha and Kansas City.